The Chicago Bears offense know they can’t afford to let what happened in New York repeat itself this Sunday night at Soldier Field. Two brutal turnovers. Six other near-misses that shortcircuited their rhythm all day. If the Giants defense, which hasn’t been good all year can do that, then what will the red-hot Los Angeles Rams do with Aaron Donald coming to down.
The superstar defensive tackle terrorized the Lions in Detroit last Sunday, sacking Matthew Stafford twice. It gave plenty of Bears fans nightmares knowing that the team has a rookie in James Daniels and a backup in Bryan Witzmann at guard to try stopping him. It sounds like an impossible task.
That said, there is plenty of incentive for them to do so. Stopping a great player from doing his thing always leads to beneficial outcomes, but in the case of the Rams specifically? It has often led to big things for an opponent.
Chicago Bears offense can expose Rams if they control Aaron Donald
There’s no question that Donald is in line for his second Defensive Player of the Year award. He’s already got 16.5 sacks on the season with four games to play. No doubt he’s carried the Rams defense on his back the entire year. People might not have any clue just how much. Remember L.A. still only ranks 19th in the NFL. Here is more interesting info to back it up.
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Since last season, Donald has been held without a sack in a total of 10 games. The Rams are a pedestrian 5-5 in those games and giving up an average of 24.4 points. They are 16-0 in games where he has at least a sack and give up just 20.18 points per game. That is a significant difference in impact and further reason for why offenses should do everything in their power to slow him down.
This is potentially huge for the Bears because Trubisky is a different animal when he’s not pressured. There have been four games this year where the Bears quarterback has been sacked just one time. In those games, he is 4-0 with 11 touchdown passes to three interceptions while completing over 68% of his passes. There’s a reason the team has missed him so much the past two weeks.
Stopping Donald isn’t easy. It’s one of the toughest things in the NFL to accomplish. Still, if anything should motivate the Bears to find a way, this is it.
